Chapter 16
Clarke sat up in the hospital bed, staring into the beautiful sleeping face of the daughter she had just given birth to not more than six hours ago. She could not believe the overwhelming joy she felt in her heart for this precious child, who only a short while ago had her screaming in overpowering agony. She also had just as hard a time believing that the father of her child had missed the entire labor and birthing process.
Seven and a half months ago when Clarke broke the news to Antonyo about her pregnancy, he was furious at her for “getting herself pregnant.” Those were not his exact words, but they may as well have been. He stomped around her front yard, screaming and yelling, acting in a way she had never seen him before. Clarke was pretty much prepared for his anger, considering the fact that she had actually tried to trap him by intentionally getting pregnant; however, by the time Antonyo stomped away from her house that day, she would not have been the least bit surprised if she never saw him again.
But to her total surprise, he arrived on the doorstep of her home early the next morning, retracting all of the venom he had spat at her not twenty-four hours previously. Antonyo had stated to her that he’d given things some serious thought and decided that he did want to be a father to his child. That news alone caused Clarke to shiver with joy, but what he said next accounted for her near fainting spell on her front porch.
“Clarke, not only do I want to be a father to my son or daughter, but I would also like to try and make a real relationship work between us. I know I said some hateful things yesterday. If you never want to speak to me again because of my immaturity and stupidity, I will understand. But I’m just asking you to take a few days and think about it.”
Without a second’s hesitation, Clarke hurled herself into Antonyo’s arms, kissing his face hysterically. Her plan was coming together much quicker than she ever imagined it would. She could not have been happier. Whatever happened to change his mind did not concern her in the least. Clarke only cared that his mind had changed. She would now hold the privilege of being the only woman in his life.
Thirty days later, the newly crowned couple moved into their own small but cozy two-bedroom apartment. The money Antonyo had saved as a result of having his former harem support him enabled him to pay the first year’s lease and security deposit in its entirety at signing. Clarke continued to work her part-time job, while Antonyo maintained his supervisor’s position at KLR. Within a month, their love nest had been completely furnished, including a fully stocked nursery for the baby.
During those initial two months together, Clarke could not have been happier. Antonyo had been attentive, generous, and seemingly excited about their pending bundle of joy. Clarke knew, of course, Antonyo had not yet fallen in love with her. She held no illusions regarding that area of their relationship; however, with the way things had been progressing, she was certain his complete devotion would eventually be hers. Until that time came, she remained content in lavishing him with the love she knew that she would always have only for him.
When Clarke had entered her second trimester, things within the couple’s cocoon of well-being had taken a dramatic shift. Clarke began to notice restlessness in Antonyo. Little by little, week by week, the fragile peace the two had built began to disintegrate. Clarke tried remaining positive, believing that her man’s antsy behavior was the result of her expanding figure and not his previous inability to sustain a monogamous relationship.
Over the past several weeks, evidence, mostly circumstantial, had begun surfacing, indicating that Antonyo had gone back to his playboy ways. He began staying away from home more often, returning later in the evenings as time went by. Antonyo explained his absences and extended late nights by simply stating he was hanging out with his cousin, Darnell, who had recently been released from prison for the second time. Clarke had met Antonyo’s delinquent relative on just one occasion. Even after such a brief acquaintance, she found herself almost as uncomfortable with her man hanging out with Darnell as she did with the possibility of him seeing other women.
Then an old name resurfaced—Lynn. The same Lynn who caused a big stink when Antonyo informed her he would no longer be seeing her once he decided to make a commitment to Clarke and their child. In the beginning, Lynn called Antonyo’s cell phone up to forty-five times per day for more than a month and a half. One of those times, Clarke answered his ringing phone while he was in the bathroom. The ensuing conversation was none too pleasant:
“Why are you answering Tony’s phone?” Lynn asked indignantly.
“Why are you constantly calling Tony’s phone?” Clarke had replied.
“Why shouldn’t I call him? Since I want to talk to him, it makes perfect sense that I would call him, right?”
“You need to leave him alone. He is with me now. We have a child on the way. We are trying to build a life together. Why don’t you just go away, Lynn?” Clarke stated as politely as she could. Under the circumstances, she thought she did a great job, but Lynn would not be deterred by pleasantness.
“Ha,” Lynn replied mockingly. “You are such a naïve little child. Antonyo will never be the man you want him to be to you. It is not in his nature. This little spell you have cast by using the oldest trick in the book to trap him will eventually wear off, so I will do everything but go away, because I want him to know as soon as he comes to his senses, I will be right here waiting for him.”
Antonyo entered the living area of their apartment at that moment. He took the phone from Clarke, already knowing who held the other end.
“Lynn, I’m changing my phone number today. I don’t know what else to do to make it clear to you that we are finished. Clarke is my woman now, and you will stop this blatant disrespect of her, our home, and my time.” Antonyo left the apartment right away, returning less than forty-five minutes later with a new cell phone number, leaving no room for Clarke to doubt his intentions toward her at that time.
Then a week later, Clarke saw the name Lynn on Antonyo’s call list. Clarke had taken to checking his phone as frequently as his absent-mindedness would allow him to leave it in her vicinity when he left the room for extended periods of time. Her snooping netted her information indicating that a call had been placed to his phone from Lynn around eleven-thirty P.M.
Of course this wasn’t the first time she had seen female names on his phone, but it was the first time she had seen or heard of Lynn since he changed his cell phone number. She chose to handle finding the name on the phone as she had all the others. She said nothing, believing that once the baby was born, Antonyo would recognize the lifetime bond they created and shared. Clarke trusted that Antonyo would fall in love with her completely the moment he saw her give birth to his seed. Clarke’s entire existence as his woman and the mother of his child rested on this being true. So, she put up with all the suspicious behavior because she was unwilling to walk away from the possibility of him allowing their child to totally change his life.
Both Clarke and Antonyo had attended church with Ms. Trina on several occasions. Clarke had also joined her in the women’s Bible study from time to time. Clarke still felt quite unsure about becoming saved and living in accordance to the ways of the Bible. After all, she was unwed, pregnant, and living with the father of her child. Yet and still, Clarke found herself actually praying, asking God to keep her and Antonyo together. The changes in their relationship were beginning to take a toll on her, and in light of her mounting desperation to hold onto him, she found herself unconsciously speaking aloud to God more and more often. She even began compromising with God, stating that if He would have Antonyo ask her to marry him once the baby was born, she would become saved and give her and her child’s life to Christ.
Today, however, during her eight-hour labor, Clarke had become pretty sure God had decided her sins had been too many to want anything to do with her. She was certain that a God who loved her, a God who wanted a relationship with her would not have allowed her to face such excruciating pain, physically and emotionally, all alone.
Clarke had begun calling Antonyo right after her water broke at three o’clock that morning. She rang his cell phone every five to ten minutes, praying each time as she listened to the annoying song playing as his ringtone, that she would hear his voice. Finally, after sixty-five minutes of calling without success, Clarke decided to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She contemplated calling Ms. Trina, as well as her own mother, but she was too embarrassed to tell either of them that Antonyo was missing in action at such a late hour.
By the time the ambulance arrived, she had scribbled a note for Antonyo, letting him know she would be at the hospital preparing to deliver his child, in the hope he would arrive in time to witness the birth of their baby.
The sound of the chair at the foot of her bed scraping against the tiled floor of her hospital room brought Clarke back to the present moment. She took a moment to look away from her beautiful daughter to notice a sleeping Antonyo trying to wrestle himself into a comfortable position. Clarke stared after him in amazement, aggravated that he dared be so tired. He had made it to the hospital less than thirty minutes ago, more than fourteen hours after she began trying to get in touch with him to let him know her labor had begun. Antonyo waltzed into the hospital room five and a half hours too late to behold the birth of his beautiful daughter.
Antonyo squirmed in the uncomfortable, ugly, floral-covered chair, doing his best to find a suitable position to resume his disquieted slumber. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood at attention, jolting him perfectly upright in his seat. Blinking rapidly, he tried to bring his surroundings into focus. He smelled the disinfectant, saw the pristine white walls, and heard the voices that startled him awake on the loudspeaker overhead. Then he remembered Clarke.
He turned to look in her direction and found her staring at him with what appeared to be loathing in her eyes. He quickly shifted his eyes and noticed the swaddled bundle she lovingly held in her arms. The disjointed contrast unnerved his agitated soul even further.
Antonyo gradually began to recollect recent events, concluding that he was at the hospital with Clarke and his newborn daughter. He stood and timidly walked the short four-step distance from the chair to the edge of the hospital bed where Clark still tenderly held his child. He chanced another glance at Clarke, still finding the same disdain. He decided against saying anything to her right away, choosing instead to gently pull the receiving blanket away from the face of his daughter. He hoped not to see the same hate in her face as he saw in her mother’s.
The child, his child, was beautiful. Only a few hours old and already she was stealing his heart. Antonyo reached hesitantly for the baby, half expecting Clarke to refuse to hand her over to him. Surprisingly, however, she released her hold on the infant. Antonyo carefully walked the short distance back to the chair and sat cradling the baby as if she were fragile porcelain.
Wow! The magnitude of feelings that came over him nearly suffocated him. He became overwhelmed at how, in such a short span of time, he could fall so completely in love with another human being. The only other people he had felt this deeply for were his mother, Aunt Treecie, and his cousins. But even what he felt for them paled in comparison to what this little person had quickly stirred in him. He moved the blanket farther away from her face and examined her features closely. It was not because he was checking to make sure she resembled him. His heart and soul told him she was irrevocably his. He simply wanted to know more about her. Yes, he missed her entry into this world, but as he held his daughter, Antonyo vowed to never miss another major event in her life. After the way he’d been behaving over the past few months, he was unsure of how things would turn out between him and Clarke, but that would not be a concern one way or the other. No matter what happened, he would forever be a father to his daughter.
Antonyo reasoned he had to run the risk of Clarke’s wrath by asking her to talk to him. She had not uttered a syllable to him since his arrival. Her only acknowledgement of him had been the viciously creative frown she gave him when he initially entered her hospital room. Right now, however, he needed her to answer a very important question.
“Clarke, have you decided on a name for my daughter yet?”
Before answering his question, Clarke shot Antonyo the horrific glance once more, offended that he had the nerve to refer to their child as simply his own, as if he had been the one to bring her into this world all by himself. How dare he exhibit such bravado after not even caring enough to be there to witness her birth? Her love for him, as always, overrode her anger, and she acquiesced by answering him.
“I have played around with a couple of choices, but I figured you should at least be in on the final decision of what to name our daughter,” Clarke answered.
Antonyo did not miss the snide emphasis of Clarke’s statement, sarcastically referencing his absence at the time of the baby’s birth; however, the reference of dual ownership of the child went right over his head. Antonyo could only relate to the precious little girl as his and his alone—so much so that he had actually already decided in the last few moments exactly what he would call his daughter. In politeness, though, he figured he should at least hear what Clarke had to say about it.
“What names have you played with and thought about?” he asked.
“I like Nahla, like in the Lion King, or Tahlia, both accompanied by the middle name Ann,” Clarke announced, proud of her choices.
“Those names are cool, I guess, but they don’t really have any significance. They don’t reflect either of us or who she really is,” Antonyo said as he stared deeply in the sleeping face of his baby girl.
“Well, we don’t exactly know who she is yet, Antonyo. She is only six hours old. She doesn’t have a personality yet.” Clarke seemed irritated by Antonyo’s dismissal of the names she liked, but he was not going to be deterred by her opinion. His mind had been made up shortly after holding the baby in his arms.
“What do you think of this: LaToya Diamond Simms?” he asked out of politeness, not really caring what she thought one way or the other. Then he went on to explain his choice. “LaToya after my mother, Trina, and my aunt, LaTreece. Those are the two most significant females in my life. Diamond because she is absolutely the most precious little gem in this world.”
The barb about his mother and his aunt being the most important women in his life cut into Clarke’s heart just a little. This was no surprise to her, but having just given birth to this child he claimed was so precious to him, she would have thought perhaps an upgrade in her favor was due. Nonetheless, this was not the conversation to discuss the subject of his feelings for her. This had to do with the lifelong moniker for her daughter.
As she thought about it briefly, she rationalized the name would help her develop a better relationship with his mother, and a possible relationship with his aunt. She did attend church and Bible study with Trina, but she felt the older woman simply tolerated her in an effort to get her saved.
Clarke had met Aunt LaTreece only twice. The woman, on both occasions, seemed bothered with her. Clarke assumed it was because she had been the one who finally succeeded in having her protégé nephew settle into a monogamous relationship. Even with all that in mind, she thought the baby should at least have her last name.
“How about we give her my last name, Tyler, since we aren’t married? Or perhaps we could hyphenate it, using both our last names?” Clarke questioned. In the back of her mind, she hoped to hear Antonyo disagree just a bit, because he would profess to her that it was his plan to marry her soon.
“LaToya Diamond Tyler-Simms. It actually sounds kind of nice that way when you say it out loud. I don’t know if I have ever told you, but I’ve got four names too. But instead of having two last names, I’ve got two middle names. Yeah, I like it a lot. What do you think, Clarke?”
“The name sounds fine to me, Antonyo. I hope your mother and aunt appreciate the honor you are awarding them,” Clarke stated sincerely, but she did feel the sting of disappointment as no mention of marriage came forth.
Antonyo smiled broadly as the subject of the name for his princess had been settled with no issues. Too bad everything with Clarke wasn’t as easy. In all honesty, Antonyo realized the problems in their relationship were completely a result of his uneasiness with monogamy; yet he had truly given it the old college try, as the saying went, up until about four or five months ago.
Antonyo had woken up one morning, looked over at the expanding mid-section of Clarke, who slept beside him, and was almost certain that her morning sickness had become contagious. He became so sick to his stomach at the sight that lay next to him that he nearly threw up onto the bedroom floor. It had been three months, and Antonyo had gotten no more comfortable with his current relationship status and pending fatherhood than he had been the day Clarke initially told him she was pregnant.
The startling real dreams he experienced on the night of her news made him certain that his decision to be with Clarke had been the right one to make at the time. His father, patting him on his back, assuring him he would be just like him one day seemed so real. Antonyo determined in his mind during the wee hours of the morning just after the dream that he was a better man than his father would ever be.
Trina suggested it was God talking to Antonyo through his dreams, insisting his initial decision to stay out of the lives of both Clarke and the baby was wrong. Antonyo, having no solid relationship with God, was unsure if it was Him or not. He only knew the dream shook him to his core and rocked loose his previously solid notion of simply cutting out on Clarke and the baby. Perhaps it was God. It seemed to Antonyo that God did have an odd way of getting his attention. For instance, the way He used the absolutely lovely Minister Keisha Hearn to get him to hear the things his own mother could not.
While he would never admit this to Trina, he had started attending church services with his mother more often over the past few months because he was sure this was the one place he would run into Keisha. Coincidentally, Antonyo saw Minister Keisha for the first time on the same day Clarke announced her pregnancy to him. He wondered now, as he thought back, if God had anything to do with the way that worked out.
During his time in Sunday services, Antonyo would scope out Minister Keisha within the sanctuary and spend a majority of his time focusing on her rather than on Pastor Mitchell’s message—although it became obvious after service that he had actually heard more of the lesson than he realized. During the ride home with his mother and sometimes Clarke, he was able to hold up his end of the discussion regarding the sermon.
Antonyo often fantasized about being with Keisha, then found himself feeling guilty—condemned, if you will—for having such thoughts about a woman of God. Antonyo did not attend church every Sunday like his mother did, but he made it his business to be there every second Sunday, which was Youth and Young Adult Sunday, just so he could hear Keisha either preach or be in charge of the services in some way. On the Sundays she did actually give the message, Antonyo always felt as if the Word she delivered had been written especially for him.
One message in particular, where she preached about presenting one body as a holy, living sacrifice to God and making reference to treating one’s body like a temple, especially pricked his soul. On this Sunday, Keisha quoted one biblical scripture after another about sexual immorality and God’s view on the like. Antonyo sat in his seat that morning feeling pretty unaffected by the moral lecture, yet still unusually fascinated. He wanted to believe Minister Keisha knew his character and had designed her message to let him know she had been paying special attention to who he was and what he was about. The two had been introduced by his mother at the previous week’s service.
For the first time in all the years since he had become a self-proclaimed player, Antonyo found himself doubtful as to whether he could actually woo and win the attentions of a female. Keisha Hearn was strong, intelligent, and clearly saintly, the latter quality being the major cause of his skepticism. Minister Keisha Hearn was the first female Antonyo had met that he actually considered out of his league. Antonyo believed Keisha to be very dedicated to the work she did for God, leaving very little space for a sinner such as himself. Until he gave himself to the Lord and changed his lifestyle, as his mom had so eloquently put it over and over again, he could forget about getting next to the beautiful minister on any level. He had decided to be content with simply ogling her from his seat in the sanctuary.
But just because he could not get next to that one woman didn’t mean his desire for women other than the mother of his child had waned. As his time spent living with Clarke had increased, so did his longing to leave. Too afraid, however, to be looked at as a clone of his irresponsible father, Antonyo continued to cohabitate with Clarke. That soon became as far as his commitment to her would go.
During the wee hours of the morning when Antonyo finally made it to the bed he shared with Clarke, an overwhelming guilt consumed him. He slept fitfully and his dreams were initially filled with visions of Sheldon grinning, giving him the thumbs-up sign, and singing, “That-a-boy, my son.” Then suddenly, those dreams were replaced by the calming voice and beautiful face of Minister Keisha saying, “God will forgive you and give you peace if only you just ask Him.”
Antonyo awakened that morning feeling thoroughly conflicted and confused. On the one hand, he wanted so desperately to be out of this commitment he had made to Clarke. On the other hand, he never, ever wanted to be anything like Sheldon. And then there was God. On what hand was he supposed to put Him? Antonyo thought about seeking the advice of Minister Keisha on a purely spiritual level, but only for a moment. He quickly rejected the idea because he knew before long into any counseling session they may have, he would be flirting with her. Astonishingly, even to him, Antonyo had too much respect for Minister Keisha to disrespect her in that manner. It was another first for him to be attributed to the attractive woman of God. To himself, though, he pondered about God and what it was He expected from the likes of him, until he finally fell back asleep.
For a few weeks after this dream, Antonyo again tried to remain on the straight and narrow. He went to work, came home and gave Clarke his undivided attention. The attention may not have been devoted, but undivided nonetheless. Then a ghost from his recent past resurfaced, enticing him with both her beauty and her material goodies.
Antonyo, needing some time away from his self-suffocating commitment, decided to take a drive to his favorite relaxation spot, Belle Isle. He parked his car away from the busy strip where he would usually go to flirt and meet women, and instead chose a spot of serenity facing the river and an absolutely beautiful view of Canada.
After he had been sitting for about an hour, someone knocked on the car window. He was so deep in deliberation about his current state of discontent that he didn’t even notice the interruption. The second knock startled him from his muddled thoughts. The familiar face framed by the glass, smiling broadly, brought about a frightened reaction. He reflexively recoiled.
“Lynn! What the—? Are you stalking me?” Antonyo asked after he rolled down the driver’s side window.
“Man, ain’t nobody thinking about you like that. I just happened to see your car parked over here while me and my girls were on our way over to the strip,” Lynn said as she gestured toward her Mercedes filled with three additional attractive women. “I figured it would be rude to not stop and at least say hello.”
While Antonyo could never accuse Lynn of being a flat-out liar, she definitely held the heavyweight title in the scheming manipulator category. Because of this, he could not be sure if this intrusion was chance or planned.
“Sure. Whatever you say, Lynn. What do you want?”
“Ugh. What a nasty attitude you have this afternoon. What’s wrong? Trouble at home with the little lady? Or perhaps I should say big lady, since she is with child.” Lynn was so multi-faceted. One moment she could be “ackin’ skrate ghetto,” and in the very next moment, she could become the picture-perfect image of class and sophistication. Then there were the times like now, when she could combine both worlds.
Antonyo rolled his eyes at his former lover’s comments, wishing she were not so dead on point. “Lynn, just go away. It looks as if your girls are over there anxiously awaiting the opportunity to hit the strip so they can get their ho on,” he said as he gestured with his head toward the car full of women.
“Ugh again. My girls are not hoes, Tony.” Lynn then did what Lynn did best; she became assertive. She boldly walked around the car, opened the passenger’s side door, and flopped her tail into the front seat of Antonyo’s car. “Look, Tony, I know we are no longer hanging out or kicking it like we used to, but I would like to think we are still friends. Or at least we could be. So tell me what has you so down that you are hanging out by yourself at Belle Isle over here instead of over at the strip, chasing tail like you normally do.”
“Lynn, I am not hanging out on the strip because I am no longer interested in chasing tail. You may act a little slow, but I’m sure you remember that I have a woman now.” His sullen tone said more to Lynn than his words conveyed.
Suddenly, she hopped from his passenger’s seat, announcing quickly, “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” Lynn raced to her car, spoke a few words to her girls, then raced back to Antonyo’s car as one of her friends hopped from the passenger’s side into the driver’s seat of her Mercedes and drove away.
When she got back into his car, Antonyo asked, “Why did you send your girls away without you? You should have left with them, Lynn, because I am really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”
“Poor, pitiful Tony. See, I told you when you made that whack declaration of monogamy you would end up miserable without me.”
Antonyo wanted badly to refute Lynn’s statement, but he could not. He truly was miserable. If he were totally honest with himself, he would have to admit that, in part, Lynn was correct in stating that he missed her. Antonyo knew that devilish temptation fueled what he now thought, but did Lynn actually look more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her?
“Lynn, you are right about my missing you.” He would not concede to being miserable, but in order to get back in her good graces, he figured he should at least throw her a bone.
Lynn smiled as if Antonyo had just crowned her Miss Black America. “I miss you too, boo, and I’m available any time you need me to help wipe that sorrowful look from your beautiful face.”
Man, Antonyo thought. He still had the magic. Jumping right back in the proverbial saddle, and also Lynn’s bed, would be a lot easier than he could have imagined. Though feeling a slight pain of guilt and hearing Minister Keisha’s voice of warning in his head, Antonyo decided to follow his own mind and jump right back in to a full-fledged affair with Lynn.
From that moment until just a few hours ago, he would be with Lynn and help her spend her plethora of loot while doing fun-filled and exciting activities together. She was also generous enough to spend quite a bit of dough on his then pending and now newborn daughter, LaToya. Nearly every time he came near Lynn, she presented him with something new and wonderful for his child. Antonyo had, of course, passed the beautiful gifts off to Clarke as things he had purchased himself.
But now, as he stared at LaToya, the gorgeous little mini replica of both him and Clarke, his heart broke. His soul ached because his baby would never know the security found in a two-parent household. Antonyo would never fall in love with Clarke, and he knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. In fact, he doubted he would ever fall in love with any one woman. So, in fairness to himself, and heck, he rationalized, even to Clarke, he would have to walk away from the commitment he had made. It just would not be right to go on living with Clarke simply for the sake of baby LaToya, while cheating on Clarke the entire time. Now was as good a time as any to tell Clarke, he figured.
“Clarke, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for my precious angel of a daughter. She has instantly become the love of my life,” he began as he continued to gaze upon his child.
Clarke smiled broadly at Antonyo’s admission. She felt her heart open to receive the love she knew he would establish for her once their daughter was born. Clarke had put up with the pain of knowing that Antonyo never truly loved her in the beginning only because she knew this moment would eventually happen. She braced herself in her bed, anxiously anticipating the words she had longed for since meeting Antonyo.
Antonyo looked in Clarke’s eyes. The pure joy he saw there made him hesitate. Did he really have it in him to destroy the woman who had just given him the greatest gift he had ever received? Maybe, just maybe, he could hang in there for a little while longer, perhaps until his daughter at least turned a year old. He mulled the possibility over in his head for a few brief moments. He looked down at his daughter and then said, “Clarke, I want out of this relationship. I have tried to do the right thing by you by being in this commitment with you and living with you, but it has just been too much for me, for who I am as a person. I am simply not ready to be in a monogamous relationship.”
The pain of Antonyo’s words severed Clarke’s heart in two. The force of the blow he delivered rendered her unable to speak. She sat silently in the hospital bed, grateful that she was not holding her daughter. She was completely shaken by Antonyo’s admission. Still, there was more for her to hear.
“I feel I need to be honest with you in fairness to us both. I have not been faithful to our relationship. There have been a couple of times that I have been with other women, and for a while now, I have been hanging out with Lynn.”
This latter part of Antonyo’s disclosure did not surprise or even further devastate Clarke. This she suspected. This is how it started out for them. This she was used to. But what had happened in the short span of time between his initial holding of his daughter and just a few seconds ago? Clarke had been two-hundred percent sure that when Antonyo thanked her for his child he had also opened his heart to her. Obviously, she had mistaken his outpouring of gratitude for a non-existent seal of his love for her. Now she felt utterly foolish. The proof of her stupidity began flowing from her eyes.
Antonyo had never felt this bad for a female in his life, not even Claire, and he had slept with both her and her daughter. Clarke, however, was the mother of his own daughter. He wondered if this new emotion this woman evoked in him could be equated with love. No way, he realized quickly. What he felt was an overwhelming sense of guilt. Plain and simple!
“Clarke, I apologize. I do. I hate seeing you cry like this, but if I stayed, I would only cause more pain for both of us. I’m not happy, and I can’t make you happy. You deserve better than what I can offer you. I hope you won’t let this affect my building a relationship with my daughter, because I love her more than anything. I know I have a lot of nerve asking for anything from you right now, but please don’t do that to her or to me.”
Clarke’s pain provoked in her a strong desire to retaliate against Antonyo. She saw how much he loved his child, and that provided an easy avenue for her to be vindictive. Maliciousness had never been her style, but then again, neither had gullibility—until she met Antonyo. She warred internally between what she wanted to do and what she knew she should do; between who she was, who she had become, and who she wanted to be.
Never bothering to check the raw pain that flowed from her eyes, Clarke gestured for Antonyo to hand her the baby. She stared at her daughter, the child whom she thought could seal happiness for her, and realized that she would be a horrible parent for stealing any happiness from her. Clarke loved Antonyo, but she was an intelligent, goal-oriented woman before she met him. With or without him, she recognized, she could be that again. LaToya represented in her something that had changed her forever. No matter where her daughter lived, no matter what her daughter did, no matter if her daughter loved her or not; even if her daughter died, Clarke would now and forever be a mother.
“All right, Tony. I get it. It’s over between us,” Clarke stated while still crying audibly. “As you can see, it hurts to accept it, but I do. I have my daughter to buffer my pain. I have to move on and learn to be okay because I owe her my best. I believe that God has given her to me for just this reason.”
Antonyo bristled at the mention of God. He was certain of two things more consciously at this moment than at any other in his life: one, he loved his daughter and would do all in his power to be a better father than Sheldon, and two, God was not pleased with him right now. He also harbored a little confusion in the awkwardness he felt. When had Clarke become so tuned in to God?
His concerns remained unvoiced. Clarke continued to speak. “It is also obvious that being a father has sparked a positive change in you, so I won’t stand in the way of you having a relationship with our daughter. It is probably better that she start her life with the routine of our co-parenting in separate households than you walking away from us after she has gotten used to us being together as a family.”
Antonyo was elated with Clarke’s decision. He was prepared to fight her tooth and nail to have a relationship with his daughter if he had to, but at least for now, that would not be necessary. Gratefulness covered his features. “Thank you, Clarke.”
“Thank you too, Tony.” Her tears had lessened, making it easier for her to continue in their conversation. “Tony, I want LaToya to spend a lot of time with your mother. I want her to grow up learning about God and building a relationship with Him from her earliest understanding. I don’t want her to be deprived for as long as I have because she didn’t know any better.”
“I’m sure my mother would love to spend time teaching her granddaughter all about God,” Antonyo said as he reached for the baby to hold while he spent just a few more minutes in Clarke’s hospital room.
“Clarke, you can keep the apartment. The lease is paid for the next five months. I’m sure you can find a job by then to cover the rent, or you can move out if you want and find a different place. I will help you financially with LaToya, so I know you will be able to manage.” He handed the baby back to her mother just as the nurse walked in, needing to check on Clarke. “I’m going to go now and get some stuff to take back to my mom’s, but I want to come back later to see her. Hopefully I will get a chance to feed her. I’ll also be here to drive you both home when they release you.”
“That should be tomorrow morning, sir, as long as mother and baby continue to do well,” the nurse interjected.
“Okay, cool. I’ll see you both later.” Antonyo left the hospital room feeling lighter and freer than he had in months. Guilt still hung around just a bit because he knew he had caused Clarke a great heartache. It had, however, released its suffocating hold on him, choosing instead to just squeeze his hand every now and then.
Clarke watched him leave, knowing that, while she still felt an incredible pain, she, too, was somehow lighter and freer as well.